A tale of two lives
by nycgirl166
Summary: The Normandie Ship is making it's first transatlantic trip back to France in 1935. On that ship is shipping heiress Beatrice Prior escaping the ghosts of her former High Society life. On the ship she meet's Tobias Eaton a Steel magnate traveling to Paris for Business. with his own ghosts to escape. Will they fall for each other or pass each other like to ships in the night


**This is a new story that is going to take place in 1935. I wanted to tell a story that takes place on a trip from what place to another. I have always found the idea of someone meeting and falling in love on a ship to be so interesting. As well as the idea of people being from High Society .**

Beatrice Prior left her suite at the Pierre Hotel in New York City on the morning of July 10. She quickly walked towards the elevator ready to leave the hotel, and New York. She knew she created quite the scandal when a woman checked into a hotel alone without a chaperone. Those things were not done in New York High Society or any High Society that is. She did not care what people thought when she check in four days ago. She was used to the stares and whispers that followed her they have happened on and off for years.

They always talked about her and her family. The tragedies and gossip that stuck to the Prior family from early on in her life always surrounded her where ever she went. She knew what they spoke how her mother was diagnosed with cancer at 30, and died at 31. They whispered was it the cancer that eventually killed her, or was it the pain pills that she continually took just to manage the pain that finally in the end killed. No one actually knew was it cancer or suicide that killed Natalie Prior, but the gossip continued for years afterwards. Occasionally even now sometimes the gossip will come at dinner parties.

Everyone knew the name Andrew Prior and the Prior shipping fortune. Yes they were the crème de la crème of society, but even in high society there were scandals and gossip. And many loved to talk about Andrew Prior he had a reputation that proceeded him know as a bastard in business. He was known to have three priorities in life gambling, alcohol, and woman. He had removed himself from his family after his wife's death, and rumored to be cheating on her while she was dying from cancer. After her death he became even more known for his womanizing ways. . Everyone knew he loved three things in life gambling, alcohol, and woman. He constantly went about town doing anything he wanted forgetting that he had two young children at home. He set no respectable example for his children just molding his oldest child Caleb how to be like him, and showing indifference to his Daughter Beatrice.

As the years went on Tris learned to just not care that her father showed no interest in her. She did not care because she did not love him, and she questioned if she even respected him. She did what she had to up in till a certain degree she knew her father and brother thought she was too liberal minded for a woman. She knew that her father wanted to marry her off to some respectable man when the times come in San Francisco society that would stifle her interest. Many times she felt like just running away from it all forgetting the past, the rumors, all of it just escaping where she can be someone else. Many times she feels she just couldn't breathe that she was shackled to this life. At one point she was at the point when she just had her coming out ball to San Francisco society that she was so desperate to escape that she had packed a bag, and bought a train ticket to leave here and never come back. Then a phone call that changed everything her brother had died in a car crash with his fiancé. They later found out they both been heavily drinking, and she was pregnant when he wrapped his car around a tree.

At that moment Tris lost her brother, a future sister-in-law, and a niece or nephew in just one second. She was in mourning in till one day she came down and saw him at their dinner table. For months her father has been bringing men home. Trying to set her up with any of these men hoping that she would marry one of them to take over his shipping business when he no longer can, because he never believed she was capable as a woman to run it. The one night she had come home from being out, and heard a strange man's voice in the formal living room. He was as beautiful as any man could be. They began to speak and he was so different than man before him. He didn't view her interests on her more liberal views about woman's rights or interests as to opinionated or strong willed. He listened to her sob on the 2 year anniversary of her brother's death, and just held her as she cried. She was in love with him and would do things like go to society parties to make him happy. Her father was overjoyed when they announced their engagement. Society stopped looking at her as the girl with all the tragedies, and the one with the strange views now she was one of them. In till one month before her wedding scandal struck once again laughing at her like how could she ever get her happily ever after.

That's how she ended up on a train to New York and from there to Europe. To get away from him, the memories, the whispers that followed her. Her father who continued to drink and not care his daughter was in pain. She needed to escape the memories that followed her where ever she went.

As she got out of the car at the harbor she takes the hand of the driver as a ship line worker takes her bags that she kept with her at the hotel. The rest of her things were sent ahead to the ship. She looks at the grand Normandie and her breath is taken away by the beauty, and luxury of the ship. This ship is her way to freedom, and forgetting. All around her there are people, and newspapers taking pictures of the ship. It had already broken a record during its maiden voyage to New York, and now it's making its first return back to France from New York.

Tris was eager to explore the boat and see the many things the ship has to offer. She didn't care she was a woman traveling alone. She was not going to let these days on this magical ship fly by without her enjoying herself no matter what. She is a new woman who is escaping the scandals, and tragedies of her past. To hell with her past life the only thing she cared about was the present, and her future. Men were no longer a thought in mind. They just lead to trouble and heartbreak.

She slowly walks up the gangplank looking around at the people parents hustling their children on to the ship, lovers kissing and looking excited at what's to come on this magical ship. She ignores it all because she knows it's just her now and in the future.

As she is seen to her suite named the Deauville suite she is told by the porter that there is someone else next door in the Seville suite. Before she can continue s she hears a deep man's voice coming from the open suite door. She looks quickly and sees a tall man with dark hair, and muscular build in a suit he seems like the type who is wealthy and arrogant much like then men she met at home. He probably has a very pretty wife who knows how to keep her mouth closed, and just what is expected of her. No one travels on these ships alone except for her. As she is walking in to her suite she turns for a second and gets a glimpse at the man dark hair, tanned skin like he has been at the beach tanning and dark blue eyes like the color of the ocean at night. She can't help but think how handsome he looks, but she quickly shakes off the though reminding herself she is not looking for love not now not ever.

After a maid has come and helped her finish unpacking she decides to wander the ship. She contemplates if she should go outside and watch the ship leave dock with the well-wishers and passengers may who will be drinking champagne in celebration. As much as she would like to her heart is just not in it. So she continued to wander trying to decide what she should do next till she came to the Winter Garden quietly slipping inside wandered around the Japanese gardens looking at the flowers, and plants surrounding her, the little bridges that took you from one side to the other. She was completely alone in the garden lost in thoughts as she walked in till she tripped literally into the arms of a stranger.

I hope you enjoyed the story R/R

XO


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